


Black was the heart, black the liver, black the lungs

by originally



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Character Study, Community: got_exchange, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Spoilers for Book 5 - A Dance with Dragons, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4437404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mance Rayder has had a lifelong entanglement with crows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black was the heart, black the liver, black the lungs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallencrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/gifts).



> Contains spoilers through ADWD. Originally posted as part of round 13 of [got-exchange](http://got-exchange.livejournal.com/164437.html).
> 
> Many thanks to Kit for the comments and advice. Title shamelessly stolen from Ted Hughes.

**i**  
  
He says his words in front of a heart tree. Some of the brothers mutter to each other, saying that he's going to run, that blood will out, that he should have been kept to the sept instead of being allowed north of the Wall. Mance holds his head high and ignores them. He kneels in front of the tree and makes a promise to his gods and then he returns to Castle Black to fulfill it.  
  
They named him Rayder, as if to make sure no one ever forgets, as if to make sure that he never truly belongs.  
  
  
**vi**  
  
The crow that slew the Halfhand is nothing but a green boy, wet behind the ears and barely off his mother's teat with not even the slightest hint of a whisker on his pink cheeks. He stares wide-eyed around the tent, and when Styr confronts him, Mance half thinks he'll piss himself. When he steps into the light, though, Mance finds he knows him, even before he stutters out his name.  
  
"All men must die," he tells Stark's bastard.  
  
All the same, there's a tightness around Mance's heart as he trades words with the boy, a pang of something he hasn't felt in a long time. It's not quite regret. He wouldn't give the red silk in his cloak for a life of servitude, and that will never change. He hasn't spent the years pining away, either; he's had his share of bedwarmers, and now he has Dalla. She's a fierce, clever beauty and she'll make a fitting queen. But he can't help but feel a wave of longing for a life he never lived, one he never could have lived.  
  
The boy speaks passionately and convincingly, but the crow is a tricksy bird; Mance knows that better than anyone.  
  
  
**iii**  
  
The view from Winterfell's ramparts is not as impressive as that from the top of the Wall, but Mance brushes the snow from the crenel and leans out anyway. He can pick out the heart tree in the center of the godswood, its leaves blood-red and vivid against the uniform grey-green of the sentinels and soldier pines that surround it.  _It doesn't look so different from this side._  
  
A sudden shout shakes him from his thoughts. He turns to see two boys: one dark and long-faced, Ned Stark in miniature, and the other kissed by fire, with a shock of auburn hair that stands out against the snow like weirwood leaves.  _Perhaps the bastard Qorgyle had mentioned?_  Mance himself has been taken with many a red-headed wildling girl on his rangings; it seems that, too, is no different this side of the Wall. He laughs aloud when he sees what the pair are about and they turn, wide-eyed and panicked in the presence of an adult.  
  
"That's a fine mountain," Mance observes, humor colouring his words as he eyes the snow they've arranged above the courtyard. "I almost took it for one of the Frostfangs."  
  
The darker lad takes a step forward, shielding the other determinedly though his voice shakes. "You won't tell our lord father, will you?"  
  
"You're Lord Stark's sons?"  
  
"He's Robb Stark," the boy says, nodding, "and I'm Jon Snow."  
  
Mance looks them over again, forced to rethink his first impressions. He can see the resemblance to Lady Stark in Robb's fine features now, though there's still no doubting the bastard's Stark blood, nor his fierce defiance. Mance offers him a wink.  
  
"On my honor as a black brother," he says. "Just try and hit old Qorgyle for me when you throw it, there's a good lad."  
  
  
**ii**  
  
Qhorin is vital in Mance's arms: he's hot blood and a quick heartbeat, the one spot of life in the darkness of the Shadow Tower. Mance brushes a kiss to the back of his neck, breathing the comforting scent of sweat and leather. Though Qhorin shifts and grumbles, he doesn't pull away, and Mance takes that as an invitation to roll his hips.  
  
"Mance." Qhorin's voice is sleep-hoarsened and disapproving. "We've a ranging at first light."  
  
"The Others take your ranging," Mance says, pressing himself even closer. "Come here."  
  
"I'll make you sleep on your own cot," Qhorin says, but there's no heat to the threat. He rolls over and fits their lips together, warm and rough and familiar.  
  
"You wouldn't," Mance mumbles against his mouth. "Mallister's too stingy to light a fire in here, you'd freeze."  
  
"So would you. Or do wildlings not feel the cold?"  
  
Mance laughs and straddles him, pinning him back into their pile of furs and letting his hand roam down over Qhorin's side. "You southrons should be grateful that we do. Rangings would be harder without any fires to track."  
  
Qhorin's reply is lost to a groan as Mance's questing fingers find their mark.  
  
  
**vii**  
  
Jon Snow doesn't know he's a skinchanger, Mance is sure of it. Or else he knows it and resists it, thinking that ignoring a thing will make it untrue. It's not his fault. South of the Wall, such things are dismissed as mere tales, even by the Starks who have warging in their blood and on their banners.  
  
Among the free folk, there's belief, but also fear.  
  
A crow and a warg besides; they give him and his direwolf a wide berth, all except the spearwife who stole him, she of the fiery hair and fiery temperament. Ygritte, Mance thinks her name is, one of the Lord of Bones' scouts. It's hard to keep track of every person in his sprawling army these days, but he tries.  
  
Mance stands and observes the comings and goings of his camp, but his eyes are drawn back to Jon Snow. His wolf watches over him now as he cleans his bastard sword, standing unnervingly still and silent in his vigil, his red eyes gleaming in the firelight. If the boy's word holds true, perhaps the wolf will serve them well in the battle to come. If not, well. A wolf can be killed.  
  
  
**xi**  
  
The new Lord Commander spars with surprising ferocity and skill, but he has not the strength nor size to match Mance blade to blade.  
  
The shock in Jon Snow's eyes to find the Lord of Bones a worthy opponent is gratifying, too, and Mance almost wants to laugh. It pleases him to needle Jon, to hint at what has come to pass with an increasing lack of subtlety, despite the red witch's pointed looks.  
  
Jon fights well but, Mance reflects, as he pins the boy beneath him and his helm hits the ground with a satisfying crunch, not well enough.  
  
  
**x**  
  
It's a queer thing, to watch your own death.  
  
Mance feels his fingers curl into fists as Rattleshirt resists the guards that usher him to his fate, beseeching with Mance's eyes, crying for mercy with Mance's voice. It stings that his people will forever remember him denying his name and his kingship as he burned, but he lives. His son lives.  
  
Up on their platform, the southron king and the red witch preside over this mummery, she with fire in her eyes and fervor in her voice and he wearing a grim expression. Val stands motionless at the king's side, watching the scene before her with unflinching courage.  _Does she know that's not me_?  _Does anyone?_ At least the false Mance is not wearing his true cloak.  
  
When the flames lick up over the horn to the weirwood cage that holds the Lord of Bones, he begins to scream with Mance's voice and Mance has to look away. He finds Jon Snow standing with his men, gaze fixed on the fire, just as grim-faced as the king. He gives a signal, and the crows at his side feather the false Mance with arrows, silencing him.  _The boy is merciful_ , Mance thinks.  _He would grant me that._  
  
On the platform, the king's expression has turned sour and the witch loses her composure, just for a moment, before she calls for Mance's people to feed their gods to the flames and bend the knee, as they had always fought against.  
  
Stannis draws his magic sword, and the ruby at Mance's wrist glows angrily red.  _There are worse fates that could befall them_.  
  
He steps forward, allows Rattleshirt's malicious grin to twist his lips, and, for the first time in a long time, Mance Rayder goes to his knees before a southron lord.  
  
  
**ix**  
  
When they send Jon Snow and his pristine black cloak into his camp, Mance is tempted to kill him there and then, no matter what he has to say. He could do it: slit his throat and send his body back to the Wall wrapped in his bloody cloak. Let Denys Mallister be scandalized by red on black all over again.  
  
There's something in the boy's demeanor, though, that gives him pause. He didn't come here by choice; whoever is commanding the Wall sent him here to die, wanted Mance to do the Watch's dirty work for them. That's not something he's willing to do any more, no matter what oaths he might have sworn or broken. Jon Snow, it seems, is.  
  
Mance doesn't have time to treat with boys; he has a war to win and a babe to see into a new world, a world south of the Wall, out of the cold grasp of white walkers. A son to carry the wildling blood the Watch so hates and the wildling name they gave him.  
  
When the horns sound, Mance grits his teeth, throws Snow to the tender mercies of Varamyr, and turns to face his newest challenger.  
  
  
**iv**  
  
He's shaking with rage as he leaves Mallister's chambers, though the limp that persists even after that time spent recovering somewhat ruins the drama of his exit. They'd begrudge him a sliver of colour in the darkness, a souvenir of a so-called wildling's kindness towards a black brother.  _They're the savages, these soft southron knights who sit in warm towers and make a crime of a kiss._ Almost worse had been the thinly veiled comments about Qhorin and the insinuation that Mance's blood was to blame for his actions. As he stalks away, attracting stares and whispers, Mance makes a decision.  
  
  
**xiii**  
  
It amuses him, to use the name.  
  
He has sense enough not to sing the song, of course, but he can't help thinking about the story as he gazes upon the daughter of Winterfell and her keepers. She doesn't look much like Jon Snow and she doesn't look much like he remembers, but the boy is a bastard and Arya Stark had been barely more than a babe when last he saw her. Now she is a woman wed. A winter rose plucked by a monster in man's skin.  
  
The fat man, deep in his cups, roars the name of a song and Mance smiles to himself as he strums the first chord. He doesn't often get to weave the stories of the Night's Watch. Free folk don't take too kindly to songs of Danny Flint, though they're happy enough to hear about the Dornish or the Reynes of Castamere, southrons too southern to be threatening, deserts and cities and places far beyond the Wall, beyond imagining.  
  
He sits and strums his lute and sings the songs that Manderly asks him for, the pointed songs about secrecy and betrayal and offending the old gods, and thinks about history repeating itself.  
  
  
**v**  
  
The haze of smoke that has settled over Winterfell's Great Hall almost obscures the procession as they enter. From his seat with the freeriders, Mance has a view of the king as he lumbers in, already half in his cups by the redness of his nose if Mance is any judge. He watches him all the way to the dais and finds him lacking; this is hardly the southron warrior-king the stories tell of. Ned Stark, though, might pose a greater threat to his plans.  
  
Orland of Oldtown is warbling "The Mermaid's Lament" when Mance spots the black brother enter the hall and make his way to the dais to pay respects to the king. This must be his quarry, surely; the First Ranger. Though Mance has never met him before, he draws himself further into the throng of freeriders, just in case, and watches with interest as Benjen Stark threads his way to the back of the hall, where a group of men laugh together whilst dogs tussle over bones at their feet. Stark settles himself on the bench, and it's suddenly clear that the flash of white beneath his table is not a dog but a direwolf. Which means that the boy grinning drunkenly up at him, with ruddy cheeks and sweat-dampened dark hair sticking to his forehead, must be his bastard nephew. Mance studies him, looking for signs of that fierce child he'd met on the ramparts all those years ago. When the boy stands up, anger twisting his features as he storms out of the hall, he finds them. A dish of meat finally finds its way to his part of the hall, disrupting his discreet observations. Amongst the cheers and good-natured arguing, Mance wonders idly what the crow and the bastard found to quarrel about.  
  
  
**viii**  
  
The heat from the fire can be felt from hundreds of yards away. The flickering glow of it lights the night, making the sky look like day and the weeping Wall glisten as if it's covered in jewels. It would be beautiful if it weren't so dangerous.  
  
Though he's scaled the Wall many times over the years, assaulting it is something very different. The crows at the top look like toys, but their oil and rocks and arrows are real. There's no turning back, though; if they fail, they will die regardless. Mance breathes deeply and barks his first command.  
  
  
**xii**  
  
Jon Snow kisses like he's half an animal: wild and skittish and with his teeth. Mance crowds him against the wall of the red witch's chambers and devours him, as Jon's fingers tangle in his hair and Jon's blunt nails scrape at his neck. When Mance pulls back they're both breathless with it. He cups Jon's pink cheek and the boy stares up at him with lust-darkened eyes, though in truth he's a green boy no longer; there's a patch of downy hair under Mance's fingers and Jon's body is lean and hard against him. Mance kisses him again, softer this time, and afterwards, Jon finds his voice.  
  
"What are we doing?"  
  
"I'm having myself a taste of crow, Lord Snow," Mance says. "The way you had a taste of freedom."  
  
"I never," Jon starts, and tries to squirm away, his hand going to his dragonsteel. "I was never really one of you."  
  
"Weren't you?" Mance says, and the flicker in Jon's eyes tells him everything. "That speech you gave me about the feast, you told it true. And you loved your spearwife. I'm no fool, boy."  
  
"And I'm no oathbreaker."  
  
Mance regards him steadily, and Jon Snow meets his gaze, defiance in his eyes.  _There's castle-forged steel in this one_ , he thinks,  _under the soft skin_. The brothers chose true in him.  
  
"Maybe you aren't," Mance says at last. "You've kept my son safe. For that, I'll find your sister for you."  
  
"Thank you. Truly." This time, there's relief in those fierce grey eyes.  
  
"But you're fooling yourself if you believe there's not something of the free folk in you," Mance says, bending his head close to Jon's ear. "I'm a deserter. You should have taken my head with that bastard sword the minute you saw me,  _Lord Commander_ , not pleaded for my life."  
  
The boy has no answer for that. After a long moment, he says, "Mance… I'm sorry about Qhorin."  
  
_More perceptive than I gave him credit for, it seems_. "Aye, well," he says. "The Halfhand lived a good long time. So have I, for that matter." He runs his thumb over Jon's parted lips and feels him shiver. "You would have made me a good general, Jon Snow. Now, let's finish what we started before your witch comes back."  
  
For the first time in a long time, Mance Rayder goes to his knees before a crow.

**Author's Note:**

> Please do feel free to come and talk Mance Rayder at me on [tumblr](http://originally.tumblr.com/post/127335223635/black-was-the-heart-black-the-liver-black-the).


End file.
